LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



ODDDbimiaE 



I 




"^o 






<> ' • • • , 






■?■'■ 






-^^ 



** 





.T* A 







<> *';. 













•** ^-^^ ">.*** .To' .^0 



>^ V*^"*\/ ^q,;'^^-'.o'> 






.^ ... 









^- °- /\-^i.% ^°-i!^'> /.-^'^ 




^\</ V^^*/ \^^^\/ "o^-^^-/ 










To" <0' 




VJ 4' 







A <^ ♦-: 












m 

v|r.' 



1^ 



I 
® 



[ft 

rV 



m 

I 

i 






k 

I 

i 

i 



THE UNION- A BLESSING; 



IT MUST BE ri{ESEI!YED! 








BY IIKV. 



MKRKILL MILLER. 



Sunday Kveuin<i^, April 2Stli, 18(51. 




OGDKNS'inillGII: 

*'AJ)VANCk" steam PKINTINO IIOUSK, AVATEK STREET. 

1861 



(1 



rm 






1 
I 

i 
f 



l)('.liv(>red at tlio P'inst Presbyterian (-luireli, 0<j:;(leTisl)ijrgli, J^. 1., rl^ 



f 







El //-v5-r 



Ogdensbuugh, April 29, 1861. 
Rev. L. Merrill Miller, 

Demi Sir : — Many wlio had not the pleasure of hearing your 
able and patriotic discourse last evening, express a desire to read it. — 
You will oblige your many Friends and aid the cause of our com- 
mon Country, by furnishing a copy for pul>lication. 



Resi^ectfully Yours, 



John Fine. 
A. B. James, 
R. W. Judson, 
Geo. Iliilburt, 
D. M. Cliapin, 
F. B. Hitchcock, 



J. W. Hopkins, 

S. N. Sherman, 
Alric M. Ilerriman, 
Eliiah White, 

B. 11. Varv, 
Smith Stiilwcll, 

C. P Geer, 



W. E. Guest, 
L. A. Pierce, 
K. M. Barnes, 
StiUman Foote, 
I. L. Seymour, 
W. C. Browu. 



Ogdensburgh, April .30, 18C1. 
To Messrs. J. Fine, A. B. James and others, 

Sirs : — Your note asking for a copy of my Sermon, preached last 

Sabbath evening, has just come to hand. Yielding to your judgment 

and wishes, I herewith transmit it with the desire that it may aid your 

patriotic eiforts in behalf of our beloved Country in this day of her peril. 

Yours Truly, 

L. MERRILL MILLER. 



THE UNION-A BLESSmG; 

IT m:xjst be preserved. 




:^y aE=8LoTr. 31a. IVt^BS^STLXXiXj IMEHjXjESIE^. 



^ II i | I <Bi I > II ^ 1 



Destroy it not; for a Blessing is in it.— Isiali, 65 : 8. 



Periods occur in the history of indi- 
viduals when their destiny for life and 
eternity may be decided by the determi- 
nations and actions of an houi\ At such 
a time, whatever may be the occasion, 
whether civil, political or moral, in 
which that person's interest is bound, he 
is under imperative oljligations to consid- 
er and weigh his duty conscientiously 
and religiously. 

In like manner occasions arise, Avhen 
the future of a nation, and even its cxist- 
en(e hang suspended on the decisions and 
-actions of a day. , Then the duties of the 
Patriot are to be measured by the stand- 
ard of the Christian. Questions of civil 
policy and political action become emi- 
nently religious. They are to be de- 
cided by the voice of duty and the law of 
God. We are to carry them on our knees 
to the family altar, and into our retreats 
of silent communing and secret jjraycr. — 
Then it becomes the Pulpit to speak in 
all the wisdom it can command, and with 
all the christian love and fervor and in- 
tegiitv it can exercise and cherish. Such 



a j>eiiod is upon us to-day. Our Nation- 
al existence is imperilled. The complete 
dismemberment of these United States is 
threatened. A princii^le is inaugurated 
which would resolve this great nationali- 
ty, so honorable, so powerful, and so 
prosperous in the eyes of the whole world, 
into an indefinite number of petty con- 
federacies, no one of which could reason- 
ably expect long-continued peace at home 
or respect abroad. Not only is the wel- 
fare and happiness of the country invad- 
ed, but, what is of eminent importance to 
the child of God, the general interests of 
the Church of Christ are distracted, and 
the progress of his kingdom delayed. 

"We therefore use the language of the 
text, similarly to its application to the 
Jewish people, and say of our Union : 
" Destroy it not ; for a blessing is in it." 
Let us consider the subject thus introduc- 
ed by showing, first, The blessing in the 
Union of the United States ; second, 
Regard its impending destruction ; third, 
Our duty to prevent. 

I. There is a Ijlcssing involved in tlic 



existence of this Government and in the 
perpetuity of our Union. This blessing 
rises before us, as great and ricli and 
varied, challenging all our powers of lan- 
guage to suggest or indicate it. 

The American Nation has not 
exjierienced an existence of four score 
years since its recognition after a long 
and bloody struggle of seven years, and 
when its inhabitants all told numbered 
only three millions, and when heavy debts 
and delicate questions of consolidation 
encumbered it. Nevertheless, under the 
genial influences of our Republican form 
of Government and the signal endorse- 
ment of Divine Providence, we have 
reached a prosperity unj^aralleled in the 
history of all the nations of the Avorld. — 
Our numbers have swelled to over thirty 
millions. Our possessions extend from 
the broad Atlantic to the great Paciiic. 
They are washed by the clear, cold waters 
of the Northern Lakes and the St. Law- 
rence on the one hand, and the M'armly- 
flowing Gulf-tides on the South. Count- 
less millions of wealth are scattered over 
this great district, and everywhere peace 
and gladness, until a few days since, pre- 
vailed. The sound of the viol and hai-p 
were universally heard. Men went 
whither they pleased. They gathered 
in churches and worshipped at the Ix^ck 
of no voice except tlie voice of God, and 
the call of their own conscience. The 
press was unfettered, and men sat under 
their own vines and fig trees, with none 
to molest or make them afraid. Our 
ports and privileges and strong guaran- 
tees were open to the strangers of all 
nations, and the wearied and discontent- 
ed and oppressed of many tongues and 
climes flocked thither for rest and laugh- 
ed with pure delight under the shadows 
of our free institutions. Wherever the 
prows of our vessels ploughed distant 
waters, or the stars and stripes floated in 



foreign ports, princes and merchants have 
paid our country homage and blessed the 
nolle fliKj as the harbinger (^f Freedom. — 
Our citizens travelling on a foreign soil 
have spoken with impassioned pride of 
the security and respect paid to them be- 
cause they had their birth in the United 
States of America. 

Now all this is ijrosi^erity unprecedent- 
ed and marvellous, to be accorded to and 
enjoyed by a nation Avhich has been ac- 
knowledged among the nations not j^et 
quite eighty years. Still all this has been 
an actual existence. The thirty-four 
United States of America were crowned 
with it as Avith a garland of liays and re- 
joiced in it as a Queen, honored and loved 
above all the nobility of the earth. In- 
strumentally, under Providence, this is 
the fruit of our Republican institutions. 
This growth has been fostered and cher- 
ished under the benign influences of the^ 
Union. We have thought too little and 
been too little grateful for the blessings 
thus secured to us. The burdens of the 
Government have weighed upon us so 
lightly and been spread out over so 
broad a surface that we have l^een scarce- 
ly conscious of their presence, and have 
hardly realized through what channels 
they have come to us. And jjerhaps for 
that reason we have been led to sjjeak of 
them lightly, blindly to tamper with them 
and recklessly seek to embitter the 
springs from whence they flow. If the 
thirteen original States had chosen to re- 
main indej^endent and to construct their 
own individual fortunes, irrespective of a 
solemn contract to make their destiny one 
and indivisible, surely no such prosperity 
could have been jiossible. Their union 
has been their strength. The liberal pol- 
icy and strong arm of the general gov- 
ernment have given us our prestige and 
our i^cace and plenty. Undoulitedly 
God has used these as the source of our 



great blessings. And, while it is painful- 
ly and sadly true that we have forgotten 
properly to acknowledge Ilim as the au- 
thor of our benefits, still it is equally true 
that without this Union and this liberal 
Government these things could never have 
been. Great therefore is the blessing in 
it. 

And it is a blessing to have had'the origin 
and ancestry that lielong to this Republic. 
Our Fathers came here under the impuls- 
es of a pure conscience, and with the sol- 
emn intent of establishing a free govern- 
ment, securing to all " Life, liberty and 
the pursuit of happiness,-' granting free- 
dom to clierish and utter their own opin- 
ions, and to worship God without the re- 
straint of an oligarchy or a despotism. — 
They founded the Republic on the prin- 
ciples of an open Bible, reared its super- 
structure with prayer, and when it became 
necesssary, cemented its bonds with theu- 
blood. They were a noble galaxy of men 
trom the beginning. And no Nation can 
point to a monumental record with so 
much just pride as can we, when on it 
we read in letters of living light such 
names as Washington, Adams, Living- 
ston and Witherspoon, the eloquent Hen- 
ry, Hamilton, Jeiferson and Clay, the 
towering Webster, om* own beloved 
Wright and the inflexible Jackson, with 
Franklin and Fulton, and Whitney and 
Morse, who has taught us to sjieak to 
each other, though thousands of miles 
away, in lightning words our love and 
union. Many like these names have giv- 
en to the Union their most ardent love, 
and genius and lives. It is a record that 
shall span all earth's eternity, and shine 
conspicuous and of the first magnitude 
amid all its constellations. 

It is, too, no small blessing that the 
rights of the individual citizen are res- 
pected, however humble they may be, and 
that the choice of their Rulers is tlic 



privilege and Iionor guaranteed to all the 
people. It is here publicly acknowledged 
that the private citizen has the right of 
petition and remonstrance against what- 
ever he really believes to be oppressive 
and injurious in the administration of 
Government. The word of God speaks 
of the right to elect our rulers as a great 
privilege. "Their nobles shall be of 
themselves, and their Governors shall pro- 
ceed from the midst of them. This is a 
privilege, which, though all nations liave 
desired, very few have ever enjoyed. — 
Many an evanescent struggle has been 
made for it, and millions of men have in 
vain poured out their heart's blood to ob- 
tain it. But here this privilege is enjoy- 
ed in the largest degree. Our civil gov- 
ernment is the only one in the world 
which is completely elective, and thus 
gives to the masses of the people, from 
the highest to the lowest, the right of ut- 
tering their wishes in regard to the person 
who shall rule over them without the least 
restraint. And the will of the majority 
expressed silently at the ballot-box be- 
comes the law of the land, and the utter- 
ance of its might and its desire. 

Then has not this union of States, in 
our noble Republican forni of govern- 
ment, a blessing in it ? Who shall sound 
its dej)ths ? Who shall tell us in words 
the sum of its influence for good at home 
and abroad ? How will you too much 
magnify its growing position among the 
principalities of men? What great 
bloodless victories are achieved by its 
commerce, its moral force among the na- 
tions, and the aid it gives to the glorious 
cause of missions and the kingdom of 
Christ in the earth ? God has signally 
honored us by the repeated outpouring 
of his Holy Spirit. He has largely built 
up the church of Christ, and througli it 
sent hundreds to foreign lands to carry 
in glad words the messages of the ever- 



lasting gospel. Who can tell the good 
thus accomplished ? We have no arith- 
metic to measure the blessing conveyed 
to us and the world in these things. Nor 
have we on the other hand powers of 
computation to announce the guilt and 
crime of disintegrating this Union, thus 
constituted, and destroy this great lilcss- 
ing — dashing its cup of gladness with 
bitter bowls, and giving all our dear 
rights, privileges and expectations over 
to utter disappointment, dismay and 
death. " Destroy it not ; for a blessing 
• is in it." 

" Who would stiver Freedom's shrine ? 
Who should draw the invidious line 1 
Thoupfh by birth, one spot be mine, 

Dear is all the rest ; 
Dear to me the South's fair land, 
Dear the central mountain band, 

By oui altars, pure and free, 
By our Law's deep-rooted tree. 
By the past dread memory. 

By our Washington ; 
By our common parent tongue. 
By our ho^k•.s, bright, buoyant, young. 
By the tide of country strong 

We will still be one." 

" Great God ! we thank thoe for this home. 

This bounteous birth land of the free, 
Where wanderers from afar may come. 

And breathe the air of Liberty ! 
Still may her flowers untrampled spring, 

Her harvest's wave, her cities rise ; 
And yet, till time shall fold her wing, 

Remain earth's loveliest paradise !" 

II. The destruction of this Government 
is threatened, the dissolution of the Union 
is inaugm-ated. I have now no partizan 
words to utter. I speak from the feelings 
of my love to the Union, as a Christian 
minister who beholds in the powers that 
be the ordinance and voice of God. I 
am also well aware that in the heat of de- 
bate and the strife of passion, many pro- 
vocations have been uttered, and enacted, 
and reciprocated Ijy partizans and ex- 
tremists, North as well as South. Much 
bitterness has been caused by these things, 
yet at the same time I believe that for 
these neither the Republican nor the Dem- 
ocratic parties, as such, are responsible. 
The treasonable doctrine of Secession 
belongs to a party that demoralized and 



broke up the Democratic party both a1 
Charleston and Baltimore, and only seizet 
as the time and lame apology for treasor 
the occasion of the election of Mr. Lincolr 
to the Presidency to be the period for in' 
augurating their work. President Jack-, 
son said, years ago, after he had quelled 
nullification, which was raised about the; 
Tariff in South Carolina, that the Tarifi 
was not the cause, it was simply the oc^n- 
sion of Rebellion, and then added that 
the effort will be made again by-and-byi 
and the question of slavery will then be 
made the pretext tor secession. So that 
the attempt to dissolve the Union is nc 
nei/^ thing. The leaders in it have been 
quietly and in their own way preparing 
for it for years. Three years since, during 
my sojourn in Kentucky, a gentleman ol 
that State boastingly said that in two 
years' time the South would inaugurate 
a general war for this very purpose. Hence 
in Kentucky last week a Union gentleman 
of distinguished ability and influence said 
that in their work of secession the ultra- 
politicians of tl^e South were impelled by 
a life-long hatred of the Union ; and by 
their action rendered the election of the 
Northern candidates inevitable, and then 
^ised the event of their election to produce 
hatred of the North and to precipitate 
State after State into the surging vortex 
of dissolution. In keeinng with this de- 
claration of facts the Kentucky Tribune 
printed last week in Danville, says : " We 
regard the late assault ui^on Fort Sumter 
as an act of unji:stifiable aggression, an 
act of war, deserving the severest repre- 
hension and the severest punishment;" 
and a recent speech of a member of Con- 
gress from the South takes the position 
and proves conclusively that " there is no 
right which either an individual or a 
State can ask l3ut what is granted by the 
Federal Government, and that to consider 
secession as a remedy for any evil com- 



plained of by our Soijthcru rights friends 
is fallacious, and a step in the dark that 
will inevitably precipitate us all into one 
common destruction." 

So that wc must understand at the 
North, as it is openly avowed at the South, 
that the real design of the leaders in this 
rebellion against the Government, is the 
ruin of the United States, and the forma- 
tion of another confederacy, established 
on a different ] jasis, and having for its aim 
different designs and objects. It is es- 
timated in certain cxuarters, so that we 
cannot misunderstand it, that many de- 
sire a Government with more centraliza- 
tion of jjower and less of the representa- 
tive element — a jjurg oligarchy — where 
the few rule the many, with no voice of 
theirs in the matter. And on the part of 
others it is openly avowed, notwithstand- 
ing its denial in certain quarters, that the 
perpetuity and prosperity of the new con- 
federacy are to be augmented by the re- 
opening of the slave trade ; and thus in 
the cheaper jjroduction of cotton, and by 
an unlimited free trade, they believe the 
new confederacy would Ijecome rich and 
prosperous beyond all competition. — 
Neither of these objects could be obtained 
in the Tlnion, therefore with desj^erate 
madness they would ol)literate all traces 
of the Union at the South, seize its forts 
and arsenals, its bullion and navy, and 
desecrate its flag. Now they throw out 
the threat that they will occupy or des- 
troy the Federal capital, and drive the 
Administration to some retreat in the 
North, if perchance they cannot destroy 
it utterly. Shall all this be done? This 
Union belongs to the peoi>le. Shall Ave, 
in whose hands its existence and safety 
are reposed, stand by and submit to such 
an attack upon all that belongs to us in 
the Union, and under the folds of the 
Stars and Stripes ? We are not prepared 
for this. The old spirit of our Fathers is 



not so quenched within us. We are not 
so far removed from the memory of Wash- 
ington, the heroes of '7G and the stirring 
tales of the Revolution. 

But some one re2)lics — " Why not allow 
the South to go its own way ? In the 
Union there will he a constant irritation 
and conflict "VAath them on questions grow- 
ing out of slavery, so that a wise and 
peaceful policy calls for a separation. To 
this, douljtless, conservative men would 
long since have agreed. But this is not 
the question now at issue. We presume 
that if the Cotton States, or even the en- 
tire body of the Slave States, had really 
desired and asked for a sej)arate confeder- 
acy, the great l:)ody of the Northern peo- 
ple would say at once, "let them have it," 
though deep might be the sorrow and 
sincere the regret to witness their depar- 
ture. But if this is really desired, how 
shall it be effected ? It can be done by 
a Convention of. all the States called to 
alter the Constitution agreeably to its 
provisions. This would be honorable 
and peaceful. As the Union began in co- 
operation — where the voice of all the peo- 
l)le has been heard through their repre- 
sentatives — so its dissolution can be 
righteously efiected in no other way. But 
the South has never asked for such a con- 
vention, and we believe, if allowed a free 
expression of their opinions, they would 
not vote to call such a convention. The 
leaders at the South arc scrupulously un- 
willing to suljmit anything important to 
their vote. 

A second way in which a dissolution 
could be effected would be by Revolution, 
and this, if justified by projier considera- 
tion, would be right and virtuous. — 
The Gulf States, however, have not put 
themselves on this right, and have never 
complained of a grievance fvliich cannot 
better be adjustcel in the Union than out 
of it. 



6 



There is but ouc other plan oZ dissolu- 
tion which is by secession, and which, un- 
fortunately, the Gulf States have seen fit 
to adopt. We cannot submit to or recog- 
nize this action without self-destruction 
on the part of the whole Union. The 
doctrine of Secession assumes that we are 
not a nation, and have no right to exer- 
cise its functions if a State chooses to se- 
cede from its bonds. This idea is nlon- 
strous and fearful. It is opposed to the 
declarations of our most eminent states- 
men and to the unanimous action of both 
North and South in past legislation. Mr. 
Madison, who drafted the Virginia State 
Rights Resolutions, was sternly oiDposed 
to the doctrine of Secession. Similar re- 
solutions were passed in Kentucky in 
1799. Dr. R. J. Breckinridge recently 
said expressly that any ordinance of Se- 
cession passed by the Legislature or Con- 
vention of any State is null and void; 
and William Collins, Esq., of Baltimore, 
in his recent address to the people of 
Maryland, uses the same language. The 
indissolubility of the Union by Secession 
was declared even in the articles of the 
old confederation. The present Constitu- 
tion w^as adopted to effect a more perfect 
Union. How, then, can we assume the 
right of Secession which resolves the 
United States into a rope of sand ? Henry 
Clay, who has been called "the Henry the 
Fourth of our Republic," asserted that 
" allegiance to the Union was a higher 
and more sacred duty than allegiance to 
any individual State," and it has been 
well said, that the doctrine of Secession 
throws the w^hole country into chaos. If 
one State may secede, any other may. If 
Florida, at the extremity of the Union, 
may go off and connect herself with a 
foreign nation, and thus command the 
Gulf of Mexico, so may Ohio, in the cen- 
tre of the Union. If Louisiana may se- 
cede and obtain exclusive command of 



the mouth of the MigBissii^iji, she thereby 
assumes the right not only of disposing of 
her own interests, but of controlling the 
whole Mississippi basin. Should Rhode 
Island go out of the Union and give her- 
self to Great Britain, then an English 
fleet in the harlwr of Newport would 
have command of the whole commerce of 
the United States, North of the DelaAvare. 
Legally and morally, these ordinances of 
secession are null and 'void, and should 
be so regarded and pronounced. Surely 
the people of this country are never going 
to submit to such a process of disintegra- 
tion. They will never give up their life 
in this way. Death in some other way is 
preferable. If we "were persuaded that 
the entire South were so Ijlind to law and 
justice as to sanction such a doctrine, then 
so far from acquiescing*in it, it would be- 
come us to resort to ^1 possible means 
to save oiu* national existence and pre- 
vent the onslaught of intolerable wrongs. 
We have already well-nigh submitted to 
it too long. By forbearance on the part 
of the Federal Government, and vain at- 
tempts at conciliation and long delay to 
resort to arms, treason has gro\ATi strong, 
and the advances of rebellion become 
boastful and formidable. If we now de- 
lay or linger, we shall be stranded by the 
fury of the gathering storm, and the mon- 
uments, and labors, and accumulations of 
many prosperous years mil be scattered 
to the winds beyond recovery. What 
shall we do ? 

in. TJietext says, "Destroy it not." We 
are to regard the danger as imminent and 
great, and arouse oui-selves to immediate 
and summary action. The time for mere 
talking is past. We have no choice or 
election in the case. The issue is thrown 
upon us, and we must stand up for the 
Union, or it will l)c thrown down. The 
last President did not seem to apprehend 
such an extreme of danger. President 



Lincoln, also, seems to have been reluc- 
tant to admit it. But the sad issue has 
come and stares us in the face. The ne- 
cessity of meeting it now cannot l)e 
averted. Hence, old party lines are pro- 
2)crly abandoned. And there should be 
one rallying cry, " For the Union and the 
Stars and Stripes," until so Ijold a front 
is presented on the field of battle, and so 
heavy a blow directed, that our misled 
and misinformed brethren at the South 
shall understand that we are in solemn 
earnest, and are ready to commit ourselves 
to the care of the God of Battles for our 
institutions, our hearthstones, and our 
precious inheritance. In such a policy 
our highest safety now lies. Less blood 
will be shed and more profitable and sal- 
utary peace will follow. 

Beholding how aggressive and l>old 
and powerful this feeling of secession had 
become, I have been sick at heart dnring 
its j)rogress under the fear that we had 
no Union, no Government, and that we 
should all drift away at the mercy of the 
storm. And when our President boldly 
spoke, announcing that a sense of the 
danger had reached the Capitol, then my 
heart sunk like lead in the fear that his 
call for aid would not find an adequate 
resi^onse. When recently I read that our 
Secretary of Legation had been murdered 
in Japan, and one of our Consuls insulted 
in the streets of Rome, I trembled for our 
honor and the security of our citizens' 
property al^road. It has been intimated 
on foreign shores and among certain phi- 
losophers, that our unexampled stride 
from a few weak colonies to a large and 
populous Republic, fi-om our condition of 
poverty and heavy indebtedness to a state 
of great wealth and expanded commerce 
and strife for gain, would jirovc disas- 
trous, and that the spirit of true pat- 
riotism would likely disappear, and 
that before the aggressions of tyranny 



and the 'ssaults of war, even with the 
liberties of our native land at stake, we 
would sooner submit to an inglorious 
peace than a bloody victory. But we 
give thanks to God that our fears here 
have been groundless. In the millions of 
money which have been poured out like 
water, in the quick tramp of thousands 
of volunteers, in the readiness with which 
fathers and mothers have given their 
sons, ardent for the Union — in the unison 
of all parties, and the response of rich 
and poor, and of those who lead in our 
counsels of state, as well as those who are 
led, in all this we behold that love of 
country and patriotism are not dead. — 
When hundreds of mothers who have de- 
licately brought up their sons to man- 
hood in New- York can givd^|, and two, 
and three, and four of therflWffth a " God 
speed you !" to the tented field, and then 
tm-n back to meet daily around the pub- 
lic altar of the sanctuary, to pray for 
God's blessing upon them — and when 
from all our villages and churches, as 
our own, our very communicants are ral- 
lying to the standard of the country, and 
all these churches are rememl^ering them 
in prayer, there is room and ground for 
hope. But the confiict we may justly 
fear has only begun. Our duty has but 
just commenced in this new field. Let 
us now speak kiudlj^ and forl^eariugly 
of the Government. By all our influence 
let us sustain it. Let us cherish no hatred 
toward any — yield to no spirit of bitter 
recrimination over the i^ast — forget old 
difficulties — speak kindly to and of each 
other. Let those that can be ready to go 
at the call of the Government, and those 
that remain at home bear their exjienses. 

Let us pray for our country North and 
South, and commend it continually to 
God. Pray for onr rulers that they may 
have wisdom and courage to know and 
discharge their whole duty. And while 



we pray for our volunteers (the commu- 
nicants who have gone from our Church — 
the noble sons who have gone from our 
families — the whole-souled men who have 
left our homes at a moment's call) — let us 
not forget to pray for the brethren with 
whom we differ and with whom we are 
joined at issue — that God in whose hands 
are all our hearts — may cause us to look 
at each other again soon in peace and to 
strike hands once more and forever as 
brethren. Let us give ourselves up daily 
and constantly to the divine direction. 
No one can now, unaided by God's good 
Providence and spirit, tell what course it 
is best things should take in the settle- 
ment ultimately before us. Human wis- 
dom is inadequate to the occasion. It is 
powcrles^Hpr the problem of this crisis. 



But one 



we are sure can be, " God 



can issue this state of things exceedingly 
to the honor of his Son. And wc can ask 
Him to do this." Let us ever remember 
and urge this plea. Let us with all 
earnestness do the right as consceienco 
and opportunity bid us and say with the 
ancient leader of Israel : " In the Lord 
put I my trust, " I will not fear what 
flesh can do unto me, " solemnly re- 
membering our constitutional Covenant 
as members of these U. S., and our Spi- 
ritual allegiance to the King of Nations 
and Saints, may we like one man, 
E pluribus umim, serve God with all our 
hearts and all our trust and do our best 
for our country that its blessed bonds 
may be strengtliened, and its fraternity 
and peace, and Liberty and Union may 
be preserved for ages to come. " Destroy 
it not ; for a blessing is in it." 



ireo 




^c 




w-'y\!^^'</ "v^s^'. 















4.^ 



>. 




^0 -^^ .wf:* J. 






.*'"■%. 








